Field of the Art
The disclosure relates to the field of multimedia playback, and more particularly to the field of broadcasting constituent parts of multimedia content to mobile multimedia rendering devices.
Discussion of the State of the Art
Today there are many mobile devices such as multimedia players, smartphones, tablet computers, or other various mobile electronic devices, that have the ability to play media to a wireless playback device (such as a speaker, stereo receiver, or television) over a radio-based wireless link using BLUETOOTH™ or Wi-Fi wireless data transmission protocols. The BLUETOOTH™ or Wi-Fi mediated transmission of media such as audio or multimedia such as a digital movie, show or concert, both video and audio going to the same rendering device, is quite commonplace. However, a user might desire to broadcast media to multiple devices with differing wireless capabilities, such as a mixture of BLUETOOTH™ and Wi-Fi speakers. Ordinarily, this would not be possible as a broadcast can only utilize a single wireless radio or other transmission means at any given time, so the user would be restricted to only using the speakers that share similar wireless capabilities. Further, the transmission range and connection modality of BLUETOOTH™ is such that it is not usable to allow a group of people to experience media on their individual devices. However, BLUETOOTH™ is very prevalent in mobile device hardware (such as in smartphone radio hardware), so it may be convenient to play using BLUETOOTH™ to a first playback device such as using a smartphone and then have this first playback device play to one or more additional playback devices, using Wi-Fi that provides longer range and greater information bandwidth, allowing the devices to be placed much further apart and play in high resolution. Low latency transport of media over Wi-Fi and media playback synchronization over Wi-Fi presents many challenges that the invention aims to solve, as described herein.
What is needed in the art is a system and method for synchronous playback of media content using a hybrid BLUETOOTH™ and Wi-Fi network, comprising a plurality of wireless media receivers and a media synchronization component, wherein media content is received at a first media receiver via BLUETOOTH™ and the first media receiver transmits at least a portion of the received media content to a plurality of second media receivers via a Wi-Fi network, wherein the first media receiver renders at least some of the media content and manages synchronization using its media synchronization component; and wherein each second media receiver renders the media content it receives synchronously with the first media receiver using their respective media synchronization components.
Further, what is needed, is a system for synchronous playback of media using a hybrid BLUETOOTH™ and Wi-Fi network, comprising a media source stored in a memory of and operating on a processor of a first network connected electronic device, and configured to communicate via BLUETOOTH™; and a plurality of media receivers each respectively stored in a memory of and operating on a processor of an additional network-connected electronic device, each configured to operate a media synchronization component and configured to communicate via a Wi-Fi network; wherein the media source transmits media content to a first media receiver via BLUETOOTH™; wherein the first media receiver receives the media content from the media source via BLUETOOTH™ and transmits at least a portion of the received media content to a plurality of second media receivers via the Wi-Fi network; and wherein each second media receiver is configured to render the media content it receives synchronously with the first media receiver using a media synchronization component.